The miraculous age ended by the end of the first century.  No one today can speak in tongues.  There are no living prophets today.  No one is raising the dead, healing the blind, or making it so the lame can walk again.  Those miracles have ceased.

How can we be sure that miracles have ceased?  We know because, as we discovered in last night’s blog, miraculous power only came by the laying on of one of the apostle’s hands (Acts 8:5-21).  Thus, when the last apostle died, and the last person on whom an apostle laid hands died, miraculous gifts died as well.

In 1 Corinthians 13, Paul verifies this conclusion by writing of the temporary nature of miracles and even indicates when they would cease (1 Corinthians 13:8-13).  This is a key passage in understanding the duration of miracles.  The Corinthians were abusing the spiritual gifts they had been blessed with by elevating some over others and making it seem as if those who possessed some of the greater gifts, namely speaking in tongues, were somehow superior to those who did not have those gifts.  Paul says to these Christians, “yet show I unto you a more excellent way” (1 Corinthians 12:29-31).

What was this more excellent way?  It was the way of love!  Why was love more excellent than spiritual gifts?  It was greater because of its duration.  Love would last forever, while spiritual gifts would someday cease.  This is what this great chapter teaches.  Let’s look at it.

Paul does not leave us to guess when miraculous powers would cease.  He tells us plainly that they would cease when that which is perfect comes.

1 Corinthians 13:8–10 (ESV)
⁸ Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. ⁹ For we know in part and we prophesy in part, ¹⁰ but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away.

This whole chapter turns on one’s interpretation of that which is perfect.  What is Paul referring to by the term “perfect?”   Let me first tell you what he was not referring to in this context.  He was not referring to Jesus.  How do we know?  We know this because grammatically speaking the word for “perfect” is a neuter term rather than a masculine or feminine term.  In other words, put simply, if Jesus had been the one under consideration in this text, it would have said, when “He who is perfect is come,” not “that which is perfect is come.”  Jesus is a “He” not a “that.”  This text is talking about a thing, not a person.  That which is perfect is not a reference to Christ.

Something else “that which is perfect” is not referring to is the perfect state of heaven.  Contextually that will not work either.  How do I know?  Well, remember what Paul is doing in this context is showing that love is superior to miracles based on duration (ver. 8).  Now, in the last verse of the chapter (ver. 13), Paul introduces two other things that are superior to miracles due to their duration—faith and hope.  Notice, that while miracles are going to cease, faith, hope, and love abide; thus, they are greater than miracles.

Here is another key to understanding Paul’s teaching here—Faith and hope are only going to last until Jesus comes back and we are ushered into heaven.  How do I know this?  Because there will not be faith and hope in heaven (Hebrews 11:1; Romans 8:24).  Now, if miracles last until the second coming of Christ, Paul’s whole point in ver. 13 is ruined.  But if you view this passage scripturally, Paul’s point stands, i.e., faith, hope, and love are greater than miracles because they are going to outlast them; and love is the greatest of all because it will outlast faith and hope, seeing it will exist forever in heaven.

What then is that which is perfect?  Why not let the text tell us?  In the context of 1 Cor. 13, Paul makes a contrast between that which is perfect and that which is in part (ver. 9-10).  Paul is saying that when that which is in part or imperfect is made whole, that is, perfect, then the miracles would cease.  Now, what was in part?  Knowledge!  Why did they have partial knowledge at that time?  It was because they only had partial revelation.  Revelation was being revealed a little at a time.  For example, the early church did not know for several years that the gospel was for Gentiles.  Approximately ten years after Pentecost, that revelation came to Peter and was made known to the church.  That is how it worked in the first century until God’s perfect will was made known.

Now, if that which is in part refers to partial knowledge based on partial revelation, why would not that which is perfect refer to perfect knowledge based on complete revelation?  That is exactly what it refers to!  Is God’s word ever referred to by the term “perfect”?  Yes (James 1:22-23; Psalms 19:7; 2 Timothy 3:16-17).

Miracles have ceased, for the perfect has come and with it, miracles are no longer necessary.  I know this blog is a little longer but let me close it with words from Vine’s Expository Dictionary.  Vine was referring to tongue-speaking here, but his words apply to all the miraculous gifts.

“There is no evidence of the continuance of this gift after apostolic times nor indeed in the later times of the apostles themselves; this provides confirmation of the fulfillment in this way of 1 Cor 13:8, that this gift would cease in the churches, just as would “prophecies” and “knowledge” in the sense of knowledge received by immediate supernatural power (cf. 14:6). The completion of the Holy Scriptures has provided the churches with all that is necessary for individual and collective guidance, instruction, and edification” (from Vine’s Expository Dictionary of Biblical Words, Copyright (c)1985, Thomas Nelson Publishers).

As you wind down for the night, think about these things.